


In The End there shall be

by tukimecca



Category: World Trigger
Genre: Angst, Eventual Relationships, Friends With Benefits, M/M, Mutual Pining, One-Sided Attraction, Pining, a sad jerk, arashiyama is hurt, jin dates everyone, jin is a jerk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-26
Updated: 2017-04-21
Packaged: 2018-10-10 23:02:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 19,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10449534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tukimecca/pseuds/tukimecca
Summary: In which Jin dates everyone while being in love with Arashiyama who loves him back, but Jin is dating Midorikawa, and Arashiyama thinks Jin doesn't love him back. Tachikawa steps into the picture.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The idea has been there since 2015, got around to write it in 2016, got stuck in writer's block, but since I've concluded one 'arc', figured I'd post it anyways. 'Arc', because this is actually a long series with multiple pairings who's trapped in this complicated relationship.

He has long since remember when was the first, who was the first, and how did they become his first.

He remembers telling  _ them _ it won’t,  _ wouldn’t _ , work, but  _ they _ insisted that he went as far as telling them;  _ my side effect tells me so _ .

“But you said future is infinite,”

_ They _ would say. So he gave up. He let go of the railing and joined  _ them _ , walking the all too familiar path he had seen since the ‘L’ word left  _ their _ lips and when  _ they _ finally arrived at the finish line,  _ they  _ will be the one to spill the tears, saying he never care, saying he never love  _ them _ at all;  _ he never make an effort to _ .

He wanted to say ‘ _ I told you so’,  _ but all he could utter was an apology.

_ They _ left, always.

And another one of  _ them _ will come, always.

The same thing will always happen but they pay no heed to the brewing storm, and despite his endless attempt in keeping  _ them _ from the disaster,  _ they _ always willingly, persistently, keeping  _ their _ body out there.

For him.

“Because you’re worth it,”  _ they  _ will always say in the beginning.

“You never think I’m worthy, do you?”  _ they  _ will always say in the end.

Different people, same words, same story, same tragedy. It’s like rewriting a story again and again in a vain attempt to change the ending.

At one point he stopped caring. At one point he stopped remembering.

At one point he stopped warning.

At one point he stopped rejecting.

At one point he starts accepting.

At one point Jin Yuuichi starts walking, leaving traces of heart broken in every ‘yes’ he says.

:::

Midorikawa is different, Jin notices in between laced hands and adoring gazes. Or rather, he noticed when Midorikawa called him at sixteen thirty five and says, “Happy three month anniversaries, Jin-san!” in all too merrily voice of his. Jin raises his brows before repeating the same words, receiving a bubbly ‘I love you’ in return.

Jin listens to Midorikawa’s chatter absentmindedly. He didn’t realize it has been 3 months since Midorikawa came to him, cheeks flushed, eyes dancing animatedly, “I love you, Jin-san, please go out with me!” Midorikawa has always been hungry for his attention, which born from his genuine adoration and Jin adores him as well; as senior to his junior. Or so he thought, because once the time passes three months – longer than he usually dates someone – he starts to realize how he actually looks forward to hear from Midorikawa.

And Jin suspects that’s how it starts, but he pretends he doesn’t care, pretends that it’s okay and normal. Except it is not because people start talking, starts whispering behind his back without bothering to be discreet at all; that Jin Yuuichi is finally  _ settling _ down. This is the first time his relationship last for three months and counting. Peole had always paid his public love escapades too much attention, but this time with the most recent revelation of Jin’s apparently ‘working’ relationship, they pay even more than Jin thought is possible.

It gets to him eventually, when Midorikawa kisses him on his lips (already  _ seeing _ it), adorably shy and eyes starry like Jin is the person who hung the sun and the moon on his sky. Jin feels his heart skips, a tinniest bit, and smile that grows on his face becomes more genuine while shy at the same time.

Midorikawa grins like his face is the sun itself, and as shy as his elder lover, he asks, “can I do it one more time?”

Jin answers him, not with words but with the press of his own lips on Midorikawa.

His heart actually flutters, and considering it does for a boy five years younger than him, it’s actually quiet silly. But he is happy, and at least his heart has become capable of fluttering again.

At least, Jin thinks as he pulls Midorikawa deeper to his embrace, he feels like he can start believing again.

:::

The thing is, Jin never dates someone longer than one month, and so when Arashiyama heard Jin had said another yes – to Midorikawa Shun out of all people – Arashiyama was not worried. Because just like the other relationships Jin had been in and voluntarily left, it was never a serious thing.

The thing is, Arashiyama actually likes Jin, a lot.

Scratch that, he  _ loves _ Jin and is actually head over heels for his best friend.

He trusts Jin, trusts him blindly, and is willing to do anything for his best friend, for faulted Jin is, everything he does is for the best interest of everyone he cares about. And he knows Jin so well like the back of his hand, he knows that he is not mistaking the signal, the look Jin often sent him when he thought Arashiyama wasn’t looking, wasn’t paying attention – when Arashiyama actually did; look and paid attention. Because his skin vibrates when Jin is around and his heart slows to almost stop when the boy is near.

Call him arrogant, call him cruel, but those people Jin had let in for a very brief tempo in his life, didn’t even hold a candle to Arashiyama. Jin did play game with them, and now he is playing another with Arashiyama; a game of push and pull in which Jin pretends he is not romantically attracted to Arashiyama while simultaneously failing miserably, and Arashiyama feigns the same level of disinterest toward anything that involves possibility of their relationship growing out from its current platonic state.

So, Arashiyama waits, patiently with smile perfectly intact. Patiently guiding his juniors – people who had ‘dated’ Jin included – with no hard feeling toward them at all. Only pity, because they had deluded themselves with something they could never attain.

Except now, Arashiyama feels the pity he usually directs them pointing its sharp edge of arrow toward him, whose face is red with shame and heart chipping away in cruel slow motion.

Jin has been dating Midorikawa for three months and counting. In one afternoon when he listens to Jin chattering about Midorikawa, Arashiyama realizes with startling clarity that maybe, he is the one who’s the most deluded.

“You like him,” he blurts out, looking at Jin with blank expression, for is Arashiyama is as good as Jin in almost every aspect the brunette is; from playing their cards right and keeping their actual emotion tightly under the lid.

The flush on Jin’s tanned cheeks is a direct hit to his gut. Arashiyama feels dizzy, but he stands anyway because he has become that good in pretending – something he will later ironically realize as something he takes after Jin. Jin shrugs, but Arashiyama knows him that well to know that the smile on his face is genuine, “he is interesting, I guess. I mean, he doesn’t…”

Jin pauses, and Arashiyama doesn’t need side-effect to know what he’s about to say. He swallows, and, “doesn’t leave you?”

The brunette nods, gaze trailing heavenward and Arashiyama wants to grab his face, makes Jin look at him instead of the ceiling when he is actually drawing the face of his current lover.

And is dying to scream on Jin’s face at how he doesn’t leave either.

“I guess, so. Yeah. He is interesting one.”

Arashiyama says, “oh,” a pause, then, “so, you’re not breaking up with him?”

Jin looks at him funny, “why should I?”

“Nothing,” Arashiyama just wants to curl somewhere and cry. Maybe after the mission ends.

:::

The thing is, Arashiyama never deals with being emotionally invested with someone before, romantically, and no matter how good he is at hiding his physical exhaustion, concealing his emotional burden – especially when something as illogical as love is taking part – takes more than that. And at the age of 19, Arashiyama Jun understands it for the first time.

He is complete and total rubbish at it. Exhibit A being his outburst in front of Tachikawa Kei.

Arashiyama likes Tachikawa just fine. Despite all his short-comings, he is not a necessarily a bad person. A little hard to keep up with, sure, but hanging around with Jin too much, and being someone like Arashiyama who puts his belief toward people first before his bias, he can say he is used – experienced – in dealing with people like him.

There is also the different party and cause they’re standing for, but Shinoda-san always spoke so fondly of Tachikawa, who speaks about him in the same way if not more – and Tachikawa might not realize it, but he is embarrassingly open about his admiration, it’s hard to mistake it from the adoring and reverent way he would look at his mentor. 

Their political standing aside, they get along surprisingly well even though they’re not exactly each other’s choice when it comes to people they would hang around with. Tachikawa obviously prefers people with enough combat prowess to entertain him, while Arashiyama, even if he generally doesn’t discriminate people he hang out with, simply rarely finds time where he can socialize with Tachikawa outside of mission without third party between them – the third party being Jin whom Tachikawa is frustratingly similar with.

He thought he will be fine when he heard about their joint mission. He thought he would be fine and the creeping anxiety would be gone if he put his mind into the mission. It usually worked, it used to work, but only if he doesn’t have the lingering presence of someone who is the cause of his aggravation to begin with behind his back, and quiet practically on his ears.

So he lashes out, at unsuspecting Tachikawa who casually pats him on his back, praising him with, “good work!”

He feels horrible right after, when he is done spilling the dirtiest part of himself that he had kept hidden shut in the innermost part of his heart, with chest heaving, face red, and eyes trembling with tears.

Tachikawa is obviously surprised at Arashiyama’s sudden outburst, curious eyes opening wide and are actually painted so deep in color of concern.

“Are you okay?” he asks, sounding genuinely worried and now is even looking very worried, what’s with the crease of his brows and all.

Arashiyama feels even worse. He prays the ground would open up and swallow him, so he could cry without anyone knowing. Except it’s too cliché, and the ground won’t open up just because he demands them to. But at least he could cry, so cry he does, letting fat, ugly droplets of tears falling from his wet eyes.

Tachikawa just stands there for a while, mouth agape and obviously at loss. Arashiyama eventually crouches down, physically and mentally tired, weay. Exhausted. From the lack of rest between mission and his emotional stress. He cries and cries, and doesn’t stop when Tachikawa follows after him, crouching down with his elbows on his knees, and bending his upper body low so he could peer up at Arashiyama’s face. Still looking curious and concerned.

“Don’t,” Arashiyama splutters, hiding his ugly, tears stained face with his red sleeves. “I’m a mess, don’t look-I-”

“You’re not ugly,” Tachikawa says, surprisingly gentle. Arashiyama flinches but immediately relax when he feels Tachikawa’s fingers curling around his shoulder, squeezing reassuringly. “There’s nothing wrong with crying, Shinoda-san said.”

“Are you,” the all-rounded swallows, “trying to cheer me up?”

“Well, you’re crying, so,” Tachikawa doesn’t continue, just adding more pressure to Arashiyama’s quietly trembling shoulder. “You’re sad, so. Yeah, maybe I do. Just- I don’t like seeing you cry.”

‘Why?’ Arashiyama is tempted to ask, but he has many more questions he actually wanted to ask like;  _ why doesn’t Jin love me? Why doesn’t he realize my feelings? Why is he so blind? _ And he is afraid it’s these questions that would slip out of his lips. So he just nods, and moves his hands around so Tachikawa can see a glimpse of his face. “Thank you, Tachikawa-san.”

Tachikawa grins, and for a moment, Arashiyama sees Jin in him. But whatever peace of mind that grin gives him, is gone as fast as it came when he hears Tachikawa’s next words.

“Sleep with me, think of me Jin’s substitute.”

To say Arashiyama is startled at Tachikawa’s proposal is understatement. It is understandable; considering, putting the sudden appearance of the proposal, the nature of the said proposal itself is preposterous if not shamelessly audacious.

What Arashiyama doesn’t know is that Tachikawa is not even joking with this. He has absolutely zero intention of saying “I lied~” in the end, the only intention he has is going home with Arashiyama in tow and fucks the beautiful boy until he forgets the heartache that is caused by Jin Yuuichi and the said person itself.

The way Arashiyama hangs his mouth open is so comical, and Tachikawa would have laughed, except he can actually be a sensible adult, and as someone who had had his heart torn from unrequited love before – though nobody would believe him if he said so – he can relate with Arashiyama’s pain.

It is clear for Tachikawa that what Arashiyama needs is to put closure between him and Jin by coming clean about his feelings. Arashiyama would, or so he had said, but he didn’t – could not – because confessing to Jin might ruin their friendship, and, “he is genuinely happy with Midorikawa, I can’t – I don’t want to disturb his happiness, not when he finally found someone who might be the one for him.”

“Even if that someone is not you?”

Arashiyama starts tearing up again, so Tachikawa doesn’t press further. For a while. Because it just made it even clear to Tachikawa what the black-haired boy needs right now is a release. Release, as Tachikawa had experienced himself, tends to come in form of selfishness. And for someone as selfless as Arashiyama, it is impossible to become selfish.

Except there is someone, like Tachikawa, who is okay with being selfish day and night at any given time, to convince and lead him the way.

So he does, drop the bomb, and it’s been about a minute since he dropped it and Arashiyama is still looking like a fish out of the water. This time, Tachikawa cracks a grin, “Weren’t you listening? I said-“

“I heard it the first time, Tachikawa-san,” he says quickly, cheeks red and flustered, obviously avoiding Tachikawa’s gaze. “But I can’t- you can’t-“

“I can,” Tachikawa says, “I’m offering here because I want to, and I can.”

Arashiyama frowns, “but-“

“It’s obvious to me you have a lot of pent up frustration at Jin, ah, sexual one. So use me, because from your outburst earlier,” Arashiyama blushes at the mention of his emotional behavior being mentioned. “I remind you of Jin. And honestly, I need to get laid. It’s been a while.”

Tachikawa’s reason is crass, so straight-forward, and painfully, bluntly honest. It is not of Arashiyama’s knowledge, for now at least, that another reason is, the larger part of it anyways, is because of Jin.

Jin is one of the people that Tachikawa acknowledges and respects. There is Kazama-san and Shinoda-san, and Arashiyama too, but there is Jin and with his special gift he just classified himself in another bracket. Jin is special, not in a way he is special to Arashiyama, but special as in someone Tachikawa can relate. Sometimes, looking at Jin is like looking at himself in the mirror, only with more mellowness and solemnity of someone who shoulders a burden he should not be carrying in that age.

Tachikawa is fascinated with Jin as much as the younger boy is with him. He feels honored to have Jin sees him as his rival, someone he aspires to win over, and Tachikawa happened to share the sentiment. His reason for offering his bodily comfort to Arashiyama is selfish and cruel; to defeat Jin, in a way that doesn’t include sword-fight, but a win is a win, and it counts.

The other reason is because feels sorry at Arashiyama. Arashiyama is a good person, in general, everyone have favorable opinion of him. But it is Shinoda-san, and the proud way he’d sometimes spoke of Arashiyama to the point it sparked some jealousy in Tachikawa’s heart, that puts Arashiyama in his good favor. Besides, Arashiyama is working to serve Shinoda-san’s best interest, and anyone who helps Shinoda-san also deserves Tachikawa’s support.

Of course, Arashiyama doesn’t need to know this. He’d know, but not now, somewhere in the future, preferably somewhere when he already concluded his circumstance with Jin. “So,” Tachikawa tries again, “what do you say?”

Eventually, Arashiyama says ‘yes’. Because he is tired of being uncared for and feeling ignored. He wants someone to pamper him, to care for him, to show him he worth something, even if just for sexual relief. But for now, he supposes he is desperate enough that he is willing to accept any comfort he is given. He is only thankful the person who does is someone he can trust.

Tachikawa says nothing further than “okay”. And it’s only when they make it back to their teams rendezvous point that it finally dawns on Arashiyama that he is going to have sex with Tachikawa.

He is going to have sex for the first time.

Apparently, the nervousness has made him grow so pale that even the usually oblivious Satori notices it. His young team mates inquire him, but Arashiyama is too tense and edgy, he doesn’t believe himself to answer for he knows he’d probably slip out what he and Tachikawa are going to do.

“Your captain is feeling under the weather, I’m taking him home,” Tachikawa says so casually as he wraps his arm around Arashiyama’s shoulder just as casual.

Arashiyama smiles weakly, hoping it would make them buy the story Tachikawa made for him. It does, and they separate themselves away from their respective teammates quiet easily.

They make their way together to Tachikawa’s home in which Arashiyama starts growing some kind of respect toward Tachikawa at how nonchalant and unaffected he is regarding this whole situation. Though considering he was the one who brought it up in the first place, it shouldn’t be that weird. Still, when Tachikawa actually announces so casually they’re going to eat  _ udon _ first before going home, Arashiyama has grown starry eyed.

To his parent, Arashiyama said he is going to a friend’s house to study. Which is not technically a lie either because halfway to Tachikawa’s home, the young man has started telling Arashiyama about his latest endeavor in pleasing Shinoda-san through his grade, in which he is failing quiet miserably. Or rather, from what Arashiyama assessed in his own; disastrously.

They somehow ended up studying, Arashiyama helping Tachikawa in writing his paper – which includes lots of Tachikawa’s groaning and Arashiyama’s steel-heart persistence.

When they’re done, with nothing and no preamble, Tachikawa grabs the back of his head and kisses Arashiyama in the mouth, roughly. The kiss is wet, sloppy, and messy. Dirty. Going straight to tongue and for a brief moment, Arashiyama starts doubting his decision, which causes his body to tense up.

To his surprise, Tachikawa stops his kiss, but he doesn’t stop lowering Arashiyama to his back; doesn’t stop from framing looming over him, face hovering just a few inches above Arashiyama’s own, and arms on either side of his face, bracing him.

“This is your first time?” He asks, voice low and gentle, a stark contrast to his previous kiss.

Arashiyama nods mutely. His body feels hot, still thrumming from the earlier excitement, because as frightening as Tachikawa’s advance was, Arashiyama’s body apparently decides he likes the way Tachikawa had dominated him. “It’s okay,” he mumbles shyly, peering up at Tachikawa from beneath his lashes. “I trust you, it’s fine.”

“Tell me,” Tachikawa then nips his lips playfully, grinning. “I will be gentle, just tell me what you want me to do.”

Arashiyama tells him, and Tachikawa does it just that, if not more that he gives Arashiyama pleasure he didn’t know he could feel.

He comes two times that night; one with Tachikawa so deep inside of him, but none of them has Tachikawa’s name leaving his lips when he reaches his climax.

Tachikawa doesn’t mind.

:::

On contrary to people’s belief – or in this case; Arashiyama’s belief – Jin is aware of his best friend’s feeling toward him. In fact, all scenarios Arashiyama had drawn in his head is probably almost 100% correct, except the part when Jin is genuinely falling for Midorikawa.

Because even if he does, he is still not sure if he’d like to seal the deal and commit himself more seriously to Midorikawa. Midorikawa is, after all, still so young, and Jin is aware that eventually, Midorikawa will lose interest in him with more of the world he will come to know and see.

So in all honesty, he prefers Arashiyama over Midorikawa, he is just not sure how to break it up with Midorikawa since he cannot deny the affection he had grown for his junior. He knows the sooner is the better, before there is any real attachment forming between them, but whenever he is about to do it, his side-effect would show him Midorikawa’s crying face, and he just couldn’t fucking do it, because he cares for Midorikawa, truly, and doesn’t want him hurt.

In conclusion, Jin Yuuichi is at lost. 

For someone who’s rarely lost like Jin, there are not many things to do, but if there was any, one of them being finding someone he can confide in openly without the fear of being judged. Or rather; someone whom he can confide in openly and has no fear of judging him.

On contrary to popular belief, Jin knows how much of a jerk he is being right now, and one of his guilty pleasure includes reveling in his own self-loathe by having nasty words he doesn’t hear on regular basis – nasty but true – being thrown at him liberally with no tact nor reservation whatsoever.

And who is the better person other than Miwa Shuuji, whose eyes would go artic-cold and guard heightens multiple times whenever Jin enters his bound.

But Miwa Shuuji is also, on contrary to popular belief and might come as a shock to some people, exceptionally kind to the point he’s willing to listen to Jin’s ramble about his, according to Miwa, ‘immoral act’.

In conclusion, Jin Yuuichi is at lost, and Miwa Shuuji, with his  _ kogetsu _ -sharp and riffle-blunt words, is his confidante.

Not a scenario anyone in Border, except Kido-san, would believe. But they’re not trying to convince anyone, rather; has no intention to make anyone belief, so everyone’s obliviousness to the fact they, sort of, regularly meet every Thursday on rooftop is a blessing.

By this point, you might wonder, not why Jin chooses Miwa who despises him like he brings plague wherever he goes, but; why would Miwa let Jin confides in him?

Jin knows the answer, it’s silly, really, because no matter how nasty words Miwa use whenever it concerns the certain ‘power elite’ of Border, or how you can practically feel his hatred toward Neighbor crawl on your skin when he talks about them, deep down on his very root, Miwa Shuuji is nothing but kind, kind boy with heart probably made out of molten gold and carefully cut like world’s most precious diamond.

So, Miwa is kind. Jin takes advantage of him. Or maybe Miwa is simply seeing this as free-ticket to insult Jin as much as he can and want because when it’s time for Jin’s ‘session’, Miwa’s vocabulary seems to be limited to those of maliciousness and spite. Not that Jin disagree with nor feel offended from, if he is looking for advise carefully put with edge of bluntness, he’d go to Reiji-san instead. Jin is not looking for kindness, nor is he looking for advice. He just needs someone to listen to his, as Miwa had put it, ‘immoral’ dilemma.

And Miwa might not be aware but he is kind of giving Jin advice here and there, though unintentionally hidden between insults and vile words for all those advocacies are inadvertent at best.

Today, too, Jin pushes the door of the rooftop open, welcomed by the endlessly stretching sky of purple swirled in with orange clouds, and the soft hues of setting sun. The wind blows, gentle caress that someone like him is undeserving of, and when he trails his gaze a little lower, there is someone whose charitable heart he does not deserve as well.

Miwa is perched on the edge of the roof as usual. The sun falls over him, encasing the black haired boy in soft, golden halo of light. His muffler is flapping behind like. Like wings. Like Miwa is a bird ready to take a flight toward the sky with its infinite bound and possibilities. How many times had Jin watched his back silently, wondering if Miwa would really fly away, somewhere far where nobody can reach him.

“Shuuji,” if Jin calls, it’s to announce his arrival, not to stop Miwa from taking off by reminding him he still has people who  _ care _ about him here.

Miwa turns his head so slightly, carmine eyes peeking from beneath silky tresses of midnight-black. The shadow that falls over his face makes him look slightly older, but the raw unhidden emotion shining in his eyes is a sign of his childishness. Jin doesn’t hate it; rather, he loves how humanely emotional Shuuji is.

“Jin…”

“It’s me,” Jin approaches him, and he might not care anymore if he calls Miwa – Shuuji – to announce his presence or stopping Shuuji from tipping his balance and lets gravity take over.

“What do you- what did you do again this time?”

No decorum, no preamble. Straight-forward. Jin can see why Shuuji is not good at dealing with him since Jin is the type who goes round and round before actually getting to this point. Which, no doubt, distress someone like Shuuji who does not beat around the bush, simply because he is a honest and candid person who is not capable of lying nor hiding things.

Really, how good of a boy he can be. If only he frowns less… oh, well.

“It’s not me, this time, I swear,” Jin conjures the  _ bonchiage _ out of  _ somewhere _ he wouldn’t tell you since it’d ruin the magic. “Want some?” By this time, it’s more out of habit than courtesy.

Shuuji doesn’t even acknowledge the snacks’ existence – which offends Jin a bit, “who did what, then? Midorikawa? Did he finally break up with you? Good for him.”

At this, Jin is not offended. In his head, he laughs sarcastically at how messed up his priority is. “Shun is not break up with me. In fact, I doubt he ever will.”

Shuuji tilts his head without looking at him, even then, Jin can almost picture the way he is frowning right now, “you saw it?”

“Not exactly. Just because I don’t see it doesn’t mean it won’t happen,” Jin pops another  _ bonchiage _ to his mouth, chews, swallows. Shuuji waits patiently until he’s done. “But in foreseeable, he’s not, well, letting me go.”

Shuuji snorts. “Interesting choice of word,” this time, he tilts his head slightly upward so he is peering up at Jin, “miscalculation?”

The ‘yes’ is tempting to slip out from his mouth, but Jin swallows them with some crumbles of unchewed  _ bonchiage _ .

Miscalculation? Maybe. When he accepted Shun’s confession, he was doing it out of habit – because he  _ does not _ reject any confession that comes his way. Most of them last no more than a month, sometimes only a week because their confessions were done out of pure curiosity. Confessing to Jin Yuuichi and dating him has become some kind of ritual for any Border agents, like the rank war.

Jin doesn’t bother to remember nor check when did it start, here he is now, accepting another confession, this time from his adorable junior who looks up at him like he hung the sun and creates the universe himself. He happened to be someone Jin cares for as well, so maybe in the beginning, he has let some guard down, naturally paying attention to Shun – because it is what he does to Shun – and three months later, here they are, Shun texting him ‘good night’ and Jin replies him with ‘good morning’ the next day.

So,maybe, it’s miscalculation in his part, the way Shun has undeniably crept his way to Jin’s carefully guarded heart. Where a certain captain of A-05 is also residing.

“I’m screwed,” he admits finally with heavy sighs, shoulders slumping down.

“Aren’t you always,” is Shuuji’s unconcerned response.

“I guess I am,” Jin admits once again.

“And?” Shuuji turns away, back to overlooking the quiet city beneath them.

“And what?” Jin watches the way some strands of black hair is dancing by the wind, distracted.

In Shuuji’s voice, there is a weary frown, “And what- what are you waiting for, you should-” he pauses as if rummaging through his vocabulary to find the right word, “break up with him?”

“You know it’s not that easy. I don’t-“

“Break up with people, you break their heart.” The disgust in Shuuji’s voice is start-contrast to his action right now, if Jin must say – bothering to lend his ears for Jin’s indecent affair. How kind, Shuuji, how kind, Jin muses.

“I guess I do that,” Jin sits down on the empty spot beside Shuuji, their thighs a mere couple inches from each other. Jin’s fingers itch to run down that smooth fabric of white jeans, just to annoy Shuuji. “but I can’t, I mean, I really do care for Shun.”

“All the more reason you should break up with him. You love Arashiyama-san, who is way too good for you,” Shuuji wrinkles his nose in pure distaste. “You don’t love Mi-“

“I do, I might do,” Jin moans immediately, burying his face in his hands. He can feel Shuuji’s flinches – he feels sorry for startling the boy – and tenses beside him. “That’s the problem, Shuuji. I  _ might _ love him, because it’s been three months, and he’s still there, and he kissed me, and I thought-“

Jin takes a shuddering breath and stop. Shuuji is still bow-string taut beside him. Not looking. 

Not looking at Jin, because he simply cannot stand looking at someone as selfish and deceitful as Jin. To be completely honest, Jin is still ambivalent toward this treatment, sometimes he’d feel sad if remembering the brief yet real history they had together. But that history is the precise reason why he feels like he is on the deserving end of this cold shoulder and unkind words.

Shuuji has known him as long as Jin has too, and even if Shuuji still cannot read Jin as easy as Jin does him, there’d be times when Shuuji is weirdly perceptive of him, like now, for example. Where he knows it’s better to let Jin continue and acknowledge the elephant in the room he had refused – he is scared – to say out loud in fear of doing so will make it even more valid and tangible.

“You thought?” Shuuji goads on.

“I thought I could,” Jin struggles to get the word out, but he knows Shuuji, for all animosity he projects on Jin, is kind and is willing to wait. So, Jin takes his time, lets the wind caress him in encouraging whisper across his skin, let the solid presence beside him reminds him that his words would be heard, his words will be committed; his feelings would be acknowledged. “Finally have someone who won’t-“

“You’re an idiot, you know that?”

In a flurry of movements, Shuuji leaves. His muffler had danced around him, and absent-mindedly, Jin thinks it’s beautiful.

:::

Arashiyama doesn’t remember how many times he ended up in front of Tachikawa’s door, queasy and hands clammy. Heart beating miles per hour, nervous yet excited at the same time. Because once he knows the luxury of being pampered, he cannot stop.

Deep down, Arashiyama is just like any other person; starving for attention. He craves for it but suppress it by giving them away instead, paying more attention to his surrounding, family, juniors, and comrades. He shouldn’t be selfish, he chides himself, for he lives in a loving family and there are other people who did not receive as much as he had. Like Jin, for example.

It is not hard to mistake it, it’s almost easy to tell, actually. That he was once loved, but pushed away, and got loved once again. But the love didn’t come from where he expected it, so he ended up with this edge of loneliness that he had mastered to hide with years of experience.

Arashiyama is lucky to be his best friend, because he becomes privy to that side of Jin. That side of Jin who wants nothing but attention, hungry and eager, like child. And because Jin and Arashiyama is so alike, Jin channels his need for attention by giving it away as well, getting cared and adored for in return as much as he did.

That is the attention that Arashiyama is dying for, a little bit more exclusive than the one Jin generously give to other people, a little bit more intimate and genuine. Arashiyama had, selfishly and arrogantly believe, he’d be on the receiving end of it one day when Jin decides to put an end to his charade. But he is mistaken, for now Jin is giving it to someone else.

And Arashiyama is receiving it from someone else as well, so he thinks, as he unlocks the door to Tachikawa’s room – given to him after their first night together – it’s only fair.

“Tachikawa-san?” He calls into the dark room, a habit more than anything because he knows Tachikawa won’t be home for another couple of hours for a mission. Arashiyama is free today and as he had come to be accustomed to, he decided to stay another night. For another night of being taken care of and indulged, he is dying for it.

It’s almost scary how natural they slip into this routine; visiting Tachikawa’s room and ended up in his embrace, calling someone else’s name and thinking it’s that someone’s hands instead of Tachikawa’s that is caressing his body. It’s blissful, it’s intoxicating; how he’d be touched like he’s being worshipped, how he’d be tended for like he is the only thing mattered in this world.

Tachikawa gives him things he didn’t know he could want, takes him apart with those rough hands and patch him up with his gentle kiss. Breaks him and put him together, murmurs his name on his skin like a prayer, scalding-fingers mapping his body like charting unknown, territory – careful yet eager, and excited. Tachikawa touches him where he didn’t know he could be touched, reaches the innermost part of him that elicit a very primal need and desire he knew he had but never dare to venture. Tachikawa scoops it out, merciless fingers that leaves trail of virulent toxic of addiction, splays it out before him, and with grin as raw and primal as the desire, tells him to explore it.

“Go on,” he remembered Tachikawa’s hot breath on his skin, the slickness of his tongue on Arashiyama’s sweaty skin, right on his pulse point to the point Arashiyama, with his brain clouded with pleasure, thinks that they’re in sync with each other. “Tell me what you want, Arashiyama. You know you want it.”

So, Arashiyama told him, and Tachikawa did not judge him, did not look at him any differently – just with passion, hunger, burning as hot as the fire under their skin, and did as Arashiyama asked him to.

It’s scary because Arashiyama has come to look forward for his next visit, for the next time there’d be only the two of them, skin to skin, but not heart to heart; because it’s still that name that leaves his lips when he reaches the peak of his pleasure.

And it’s scary how lately he feels like he is doing it just for the sake of keeping a certain boundary.

:::

It is painful watching your loved one being taken away from you, especially when the one taking him away is someone whom you consider as your rival, though you never expected him to be your enemy anywhere rank and sword ability does not concern.

But Jin drops his cup of coffee one peaceful morning, effectively shattering the porcelain cup and the tranquility, as he stares wide eyed at coffee-machine before him.

He is barely aware at Reiji-san’s level yet reprimanding tone, yet he is aware at the hot water that pools around his leg.

He pays attention only at the images that had obtrusively sketched itself on his mind.

And, God, he needs to do  _ something _ , right now or it’d be too late. Except he knows the only thing he has to do is not something he  _ could _ do, and he feels like tearing his hair apart right now.

He needs Shuuji.

:::

Miwa doesn’t know why he is doing this; letting Jin harshly grabbed his hand and literally drags him to the rooftop where he often hears the brunette spews all indecent and heartless things to do to the other Border agents.

He is nineteen years old and most of hearts he had trampled were younger than him, well, there was a couple like Touma-san or Inukai who did it out of curiosity, but still; does he have any shame at all?

Shuuji wonders, as he is being dragged upstairs by persistent yet trembling hands – and if it isn’t for the tremor of those usually steady hands, he’d wrench himself out from the vise-like grip that surely would leave bruise if he isn’t in his Trion body – why is he doing this. He then remembers his reason is none other than his superior commander, someone whose steps he’d follow to the pit of hell.

Kido-san, and all Border top brass actually, knows what Jin is doing. The only reason they’re keeping silence is because so far, no real damage that threatens Border’s performance has been done. There is ‘no drama’, as Karasawa-san had put it, yet, despite the existing drama. And as long as it provides the ever so curious children with entertainment, and – Shuuji did not miss the fond yet pitying edge in Karasawa’s eyes – sense of retaining a normal youth, nothing should be done about it at all.

“Unless Jin has started to engage in sexual activity with young agents, I don’t see why we, adults, should interfere. Dating is part of growing up, there is nothing shameful nor embarrassing from it.”

The others share the same opinion, including Kido-san.

Or maybe Kido-san is not that agreeing, because he then told Shuuji to ‘watch over’ Jin, like he’s being told to do before, but with different reason. “If he started doing anything remotely harmful to Border, you know what to do.” And maybe, Jin would slip up some important information, Kinuta-san and Netsuki-san had eagerly supplied.

If this wasn’t Kido-san’s order, Shuuji will refuse, using all superfluous words and utmost respect he could muster at being subjected to a task as mundane and, personally for him, aggravating as spying over Jin Yuuichi’s love life.

So that was how he finds himself, with door closing loudly behind them, and Jin’s fingers still curled too tight around his upper arm. Jin doesn’t let go but he is not looking at Shuuji, at the concrete beneath their feet instead and Shuuji could see the frown marring his feature.

Finally, Jin raises his head, and the hardly-mistaken painful emotion swimming in his stark-blue eyes are too raw, too open, too unguarded for a Jin Yuuichi. They’re so powerful, so staggering, that Shuuji lost the ability to conjure up even a hint of slight annoyance in his voice. “What’s-“

“Tachikawa-san,” Jin begins, bottom lips trembling as much as his voice, and his hands, and Shuuji notices; his eyes too. He is trembling so much, wavering, like he is not sure if this is happening or he is really  _ happening _ at all, or whether his words are making sense, or – he is so scared and it scares Shuuji in return.

Jin Yuuchi does not do ‘scared’, does not do ‘unsure’. Jin Yuuichi is fortress of self-confident and certainty, immoveable fortress of certainty and indisputable. For as much as ‘uncertain’ his side-effect is – because Shuuji, unlike some people, actually  _ knows _ the nature behind it – for it to really holds a power, Jin needs to be able to convince them that what he sees is true and inevitable.

Shuuji wonders if Jin’s distress right now is also as inevitable.

“Tachikawa-san,” Shuuji repeats slowly. He could have put his hand over Jin’s, to ground him, to steady him and assure him the floor is not going to cave under him the way Jin used to do it to him four years ago.

“He is-“ Jin swallows with so much difficulties like he has rocks stuck in his throat. “Arashiyama-“

Shuuji frowns, clearly not understanding the connection between the two. “What’s with Tachikawa-san and Arashiyama-san?”

“I have to tell him,” Jin tries again, shaking his head as if to dispel the cloud of panic that has settled over him, gripping Shuuji tighter. Shuuji doesn’t make a sound and focuses at the way setting sun casts gentle shadow over Jin’s agonized feature. “I have to tell him that I love him, or he’d go to Tachikawa-san’s place. He- they-“

“You can easily speak about the possibility of someone’s death, why can’t you do the same when it comes to your own feel-“ Shuuji stops so abruptly, because, of- _ fucking _ -course he can’t.

Jin Yuuichi talks about scheming like talking about the weather, he doesn’t talk about his feelings – his romantic feelings and dilemma – because Jin Yuuichi is, as Shuuji should have known already, is a  _ fucking _ coward with heart so worn out with letting people get hurt and detached in fear of being hurt himself.

What an irony, Shuuji thinks, feeling himself growing heavy with weariness himself. What the hell has he subjected himself to?

They stare at each other for a while, Jin’s blue meets Shuuji’s crimson. Like fire and ice, a stark contrast in temperature but same intensity in their most powerful. The sun moves, the cloud rolls, the shadow falls over them like cold, unfeeling blanket, but Shuuji can still feel the lingering heat of sun on his back. Jin’s expression falls with them, like his eyes, and they’re back to finding purchase on the bleak concrete beneath. His fingers are loosening, and Shuuji is startled at the sudden panic that dawns on him as he scrambles to find a mean to keep Jin from  _ slipping _ away from him.

A distant voice tells him he does it out of reflex, of having experienced it before and not wanting to repeat it again. He politely tells the voice to shut up, then to Jin, he softly asks, “you will break it up with Midorikawa, then?”

Jin’s shoulders go tense, line so straight it’s almost painful to look up. “I will have to, I-“

“You love Arashiyama,” Shuuji offers, for hearing how heart-broken Jin is, is simply unbearable. It’s like hearing your King informs you that you have lost, having to admit that part of it might be your failure, but at the same time, feeling like you have been betrayed by someone you strongly believed to be mighty and powerful.

“I do. But, I-“

“Love Midorikawa, too.” When Jin doesn’t answer right away, Shuuji adds, “you know your answer already, why are you walking around the circle like this? I don’t understand you. I can’t. I don’t-“

Jin peeks up at him, all sad and miserable, but there’s a smile stretches weakly on his face. Resignation. Bitterness. “You don’t what, Shuuji?”

Sun dips a little lower, draining away all the golden hue from the sky, leaving only canvas of bleak dark indigo. Shuuji shifts his gaze so he is looking at Jin’s fingers curling loosely on the crook of his elbow. “Don’t want to understand. Don’t even want to be here to deal with you and your stupid dilemma. Why am I even here…”

“Because you’re kind, Shuuji,” Jin’s answer comes so immediately, so with no hesitation and full with a clarity, that after his earlier display of doubt, it actually feels comforting. “I know, more than anyone else, I know, because-“

“It’s not about me,” Shuuji cuts. He cannot stand hearing Jin speaks so reverently of him, not with the circumstance between them stretching an unbridgeable rift and chasm. “You have to break it up with Midorikawa, if you love Arashiyama more. You can’t- don’t feel like you’re letting Midorikawa down. If you really care for him, you have to let him go, you’re just hurting both of them by being like this.”

“Do I?” Jin laughs bitterly, self-depreciating, and defeated. “Is letting him go will really makes Midorikawa happy? When I  _ see _ he is clearly happier with me?”

He  _ sees _ . He had  _ seen _ it. It sucks the breath out of Shuuji’s lungs. Now he got the full picture as of why Jin is so troubled by this. Jin and Arashiyama obviously love each other, they’d be happy together. But there is Midorikawa whom Jin had come to love as well, though not as much as he does Arashiyama. Shuuji had thought it will be better for all parties involved if Jin just broke up with Midorikawa instead of fooling the younger boy’s feeling, in hope it will spare Midorikawa from pain.

However, Jin’s side-effect apparently says the other thing; Midorikawa will be happier with Jin, who is starting to love him too.

With Jin who is starting to love him too and is almost ready to admit it; almost ready to let go of his lingering attachment to Arashiyama, whom he also love but is never brave enough nor dare to make any effort to make the two of them actually work when it can actually be done.

‘Almost’ is the key, because then Tachikawa apparently comes to the picture. Tachikawa; Jin’s rival whom he aspires to excels in the field has entered the play, and suddenly declares he is going to overpower Jin in this game, too.

“Fuck you,” Shuuji seethes, suddenly feeling so sick to the stomach, so disgusted at the man in front of him, so revolted at those fingers on his arms. So outraged at himself for even feeling a tendril of pity and sympathy toward this- this selfish and cowardice man. “You’re a fucking jerk, you know what?”

So appalled, because this man who is looking at Shuuji like he has been slapped in the face, suddenly thinks he needs to confess to someone he has decided to move on from just because he doesn’t want to lose to his rival. For his pride – for his  _ fucking _ pride - he is willing to play around with and break the heart of fourteen years old boy. “Shu-“

“I know you’re disgusting, but this-“ he bristles, wrenches Jin’s grip from his elbows and retract his hands as fast as possible as if they’re burnt. He steps back, fuming, like he doesn’t want to be anywhere close to Jin, like he doesn’t want to breathe the same air as him, and he pretends his stomach doesn’t churn, twist horribly at the torn expression on Jin’s face. “You just- I thought you are horrible, but I never thought you’d stoop this low.”

Jin tries to approach him, voice desperate, “Shuuji-“

And why, why, _ why _ is he desperate to know that Shuuji is leaving him. Why is he making a face as if he is in so much pain from  _ this _ when he should be doing that when he knows what an utterly greedy and heartless of a human being he is? “Don’t you dare,” Shuuji hisses slowly, backing away from Jin, not keeping a distance but opening another one next to their already gaping one. “Don’t you dare talk to me until you got this sorted out, you fucking egomaniac.”

Shuuji turns around and leaves the rooftop as fast as possible, not bothering to close the door behind him.

Shuuji doesn’t know why he is doing this, but he does know he doesn’t want to do this anymore.

:::

It’s scary how the intimacy bleeds into their daily life as well, trickling like, thick, gooey of honey – sticky and sweet, addicting and hard to get off from. Tachikawa’s impromptu visit to his team’s room has become frequent to the point Satori no longer raise a single brow whenever he sees Tachikawa’s face popping out by the door. Arashiyama, too, has find himself occupying the spot beside Tachikawa more and more often, be it at the cafeteria or when he spots the No. 1 attacker at the lounge.

Since the beginning, he has no intention of keeping his distance to Tachikawa limited only to the dark of the bedroom. He wants attention, pretends it’s Jin instead of Tachikawa, and Tachikawa has agreed- much to his surprised because before asking, he has prepared himself that Tachikawa only wants his body.

But Tachikawa actually plays along with him, answering his text albeit with hourly delay, letting Arashiyama sit with him, and relenting when Arashiyama pesters him to do his homework.

It’s scary, not in the sense of how people might find out what they do behind closed door – or in the emergency stairs no one rarely pass anymore, Tachikawa’s lips leaving red marks on his skin while Arashiyama clings desperately on his broad shoulders because his legs can hardly support him anymore – but in a sense of how accustomed to this relationship he has become.

Tachikawa, he finds out, might be similar with Jin, in the way they always find a way and crack between rules, and then make their own way. But other than that, they’re not so similar. For starter, Jin doesn’t need anyone to remind him to do the basic necessities as person such as showering, or even waking up. Tachikawa, he finds out, sometimes sleep like he doesn’t remember he has to wake up to the world of living. He still can’t wash the dishes without breaking at least one plate, or sometimes cup. Tachikawa forgets to throw away his trash that he ended up with two foul-smelling trash bag in the corner of his room.

Tachikawa even forgets he has to attend classes, and Arashiyama doesn’t care if Tachikawa ended up drooling all over his book, asleep, in his class. As long as he comes and his attendance can be recorded. Arashiyama, much to the obvious relief of Kazama and Shinoda-san, has taken it up as his duty to make sure Tachikawa attend classes, even if it meant he has to fall asleep and wake up next to him.

Something that he realizes, with bone-chilling trepidation, is something he has been doing lately. The sports bag containing his basic necessities sitting in Tachikawa’s closet is grim reminder. He is lucky his parent believes him when he said he is doing this because Shinoda-san had asked him to look after Tachikawa (“His attendance record is getting worse, and Shinoda-san is worried.” He had lied).

His team-mates do not know, not like Arashiyama has any plan on telling them either, even if now they’ve grown accustomed to Tachikawa’s sudden constant presence around them. It’s intra-team bonding, Arashiyama tells himself. If anyone asked him why is he suddenly hanging around Tachikawa a lot more compared to before, that’s what he will tell them. Just showing that different political standing doesn’t make them less of a comrade.

It’s scary, their new dynamic. Everything is. But what scares him the most might be the way his heart flutters whenever Tachikawa texts him first, even if it’s to tell him something as silly and trivial such as Yuuiga had accidentally stepped on a gum he carelessly thrown (“Tachikawa-san, that’s actually disgusting. Don’t do it again.”).

Or maybe, that’s not the scariest part. The scariest part might be how it is Tachikawa’s name that slips out from his mouth when Tachikawa is so deep inside of him. Not just any name, but his given name. And it takes Tachikawa stopping his slow, infuriatingly intoxicating rhythm that leaves Arashiyama’s whole cells singing in bliss, to make him realize what he just has done.

His hazy gaze becomes clear, and he comes face to face with Tachikawa’s perplexed face, eyes blown wild, both from pleasure and surprise. His hair is damp with sweat, sticking to his forehead messily. And his scent, his presence is encasing Arashiyama’s pleasured body in warmth so overwhelming. His mouth that is hanging open is so red and puffy, Arashiyama just wants those lips to descend on his own, on his skin, on anywhere in his body because, God, has he come to love them so much.

“What,” Arashiyama asks, blinking, his head is still not cleared yet from the cloud of pleasure.

“You,” Tachikawa mumbles, he, too, is blinking rapidly, like he is not sure that Arashiyama is here right in front of him, right beneath him. Right in his arms. “You called me ‘Kei’.”

The cloud rolls away like being zapped by thunder, puncturing a hole with stinging buzz of surprise. Arashiyama’s mind quickly retraced back, and, “I-did I?”

“You did,” Tachikawa nods, still looking at Arashiyama unbelievingly. “Kei, you said… you weren’t-”

Arashiyama just stares at him,wide-eyed, too dumbstruck, too numb. Too scared, to admit and come face to face with the implication behind his action – behind the name that had left his mouth.

“You  _ do not _ call my name,” Tachikawa says, breathless. And when he looks at Arashiyama, he looks at him as if seeing the younger boy for the first time.

It’s scary, Arashiyama thinks.  _ This _ is scary,  _ this _ , this is something he has been dreading for since day one. What if,  _ what if _ -

But then Tachikawa smiles – sad and bitter, lost and resigned – and Arashiyama feels himself tearing down the wall he had built around himself, feeling himself ripping apart the blindfold he had kept wrapped tightly around his eyes. He had been a coward and he had hurt himself by being one. This time, he doesn’t want to – be a coward and selfish, he doesn’t want to hurt and get hurt anymore.

So, he calls that name, again. And when Tachikawa’s smile goes all soft and gentle, like the first ray of sun after the rain, warm and speaks of hope, Arashiyama lets himself smile as well. Shy. Bashful, happy, and, “Jun.”

Tachikawa calls him, and the last of his resistance, his fear, and hesitation, crumbles like sand, like they never existed in the first place. “Kei…san…”

It’s scary, but Arashiyama thinks if he has someone like Tachikawa who’s willing to embrace his fear and appreciate his bravery, maybe it won’t be as scary anymore.

:::

Somewhere, somewhen, Jin tells Midorikawa he’s breaking up with him.

Midorikawa, of course, doesn’t accept it. He argues, try to convince Jin it is wrong.

Jin shakes his head, and says, “I was wrong. This, us, is wrong.”

Midorikawa says; no. Midorikawa cries; no. Jin walks away. Midorikawa begs; don’t leave.

Jin doesn’t turn back.


	2. Chapter 2

Tokieda’s perceptiveness might be one of his redeeming qualities, and it is approved by everyone who knows him.

Tokieda is so perceptive that he can pick up the shift in Arashiyama’s gesture whenever a certain attacker is near; like how he’d lean a little bit more toward him, and would stay away as if remembering his place. But then the attacker would turn his way, acknowledge him like calling out, and Arashiyama is baby-gazelle falling all over his feet to come to that man.

He has seen Arashiyama doing this, but before, the attacker has a pair of stark-blue eyes, an easy grin, and an invisible wall he voluntarily put up around him.

The attacker this time doesn’t have the same pair of sky-like eyes, but they’re deep, dark, and unfathomable all the same. The grin is still easy, but there is no wall. Instead, there’s a door, and he lets Arashiyama in.

If Tokieda’s heart is slowly withering before, this time, it’s straight breaking.

:::

Sometimes, Jin doesn’t want to see anything. Sometimes, Jin just wants to sleep forever. Sometimes, Jin begs for nothing but to forget, to not remember he can see the future. And we’re back to square one when Jin just wants to see nothing but the illusion that he is a normal nineteen years old boy who cannot  _ live _ something that’s going to happen twelve hours later twelve hours prior.

Sometimes Jin hates his side-effect, but more times, he loathes himself more.

He had bid goodbye to Midorikawa, said his farewell, and told him they’re not going to work (even though he  _ sees _ they’re going to work, and Midorikawa had said he didn’t care if Jin’s side-effect told him otherwise, he is willing to try, willing to  _ fight _ for Jin. And all Jin wanted to do was take back all things he had said, apologized to the young boy, and begged Midorikawa to let him in again. But Jin has to come clean with his own feelings, and there are times when he doesn’t want to rely on his side-effect.

There are times when he want to be ‘normal’ and if doing what his side-effect told him make him one, he is willing to try.

So he texts Arashiyama, inquires his schedule, and asks him to meet Jin when he is able. He chooses the rooftop. Not the west wing that Shuuji usually occupies (and the thought of Shuuji actually makes his heart prickle with pain. A pain he can get over because he had experienced this before), but the east one. He waits, and he is thankful his side-effect decided to leave him obscured from the future event, because if it decides to suddenly drops it on him, Jin doesn’t think he can regain his courage again.

“Long time no see, Jin!” Arashiyama greets him, smile so bright that Jin almost cannot see him. He looks so happy, and JIn’s heart constricts, not only at how unbelievably beautiful he is, but also because he knows he is not the one who makes Arashiyama glows so beatifically like this.

“Sorry, I’ve been busy,” he says, watching as Arashiyama takes the empty spot beside him. While Jin has his feet dangling over the roof, Arashiyama has his on the floor, back facing the sky while Jin is facing the darkening horizon. If Jin shifts, he could rest his back on Arashiyama and feels the beat of his heart on the opposite of where his is, completing each other in where they’re lacking. Jin sincerely wishes he is not late to make it come true.

“Yeah, so that’s why you called me? Need help with something?” Arashiyama inclines his head, looking at Jin with curious face. And he is so beautiful, his emerald eyes so bright like the sun, and Jin fears he is going blind if he has to stare directly into it for a time too long. “You saw something?”

_ Yeah, I saw you and Tachikawa-san _ , “Nothing that harms Border in particular, no.” Jin says instead, meeting Arashiyama’s bright green eyes. He swallows; he needs his courage not only to confess but also to keep his – their – gaze together like this. “I just- I have something that I have to tell you. Something that I… should have told you since a long time ago…”

The change in Arashiyama’s expression is impossible to miss. Gone is the curious look, replaced by surprise, replaced by bewilderment. Replaced with almost bone-chilling color of realization, because,  _ oh _

“You know,” Jin murmurs, breathless. He is staring right into Arashiyama’s way too expressive eyes that are doing an absolutely shitty job at hiding his emotion right now. Those eyes tremble, dropping from Jin’s like child afraid of being caught stealing candies when their parent forbid them to. Jin’s heart drops too, heavily like rock thrown into the lake, sinking to the bottom.

“Know what?” Arashiyama mumbles back, staring resolutely at his hand that’s no more than inches away from Jin’s. He blinks, seeming to realize something, but Jin is faster. Before he can retract his hand, Jin seizes it, traps it under his own, fingers curling around his palm tightly but careful so his nails won’t dig into the tender skin. He can feel Arashiyama shivers, obviously not from the wind.

“You know what I’m going to tell you. What I should have told you,” he begins slowly, testing the water while watching Arashiyama’s reaction. “Don’t you?”

“I,” Arashiyama stutters, eyes flicking everywhere but Jin – or even their joined hands which he tries to detangle but can’t because,much to Jin’s relief, even if Arashiyama doesn’t realize, he is leaning toward Jin as much as Jin is to him. “I’m not sure. I could- could have been mistaken,” he says finally.

Jin stares at him, calculating. Waiting, for his side-effect to do what it is best at, which is surprising him. But after a while he sees nothing, just Arashiyama and his adorably red face and watery eyes, and if it wasn’t for the way he doesn’t try to avoid Jin anywhere but the eyes, Jin would belief he had scared Arashiyama off.

But Arashiyama is not pushing him away, not rejecting him. Arashiyama, to Jin’s relief, is welcoming this – this push-over way Jin is being with him, this forceful way Jin is imposing himself on him. Arashiyama welcomes this;  _ likes _ this even, if Jin might add. And it makes warmth blooms, in his stomach, in his heart. On his cheeks, and shyly, Jin asks.

“Can I?”

Arashiyama snaps his head up, meeting Jin’s eyes with his as much fear and hesitation, wide with surprise, and confusion, “I- can I, what?”

He is trembling all over, and Jin thinks it’s very cute, very adorable. Very dear and darling like the way the rest of Arashiyama is; his brilliant green eyes, his dazzling smile, his attentive gaze, and healing words. Jin loves him so much, and he still doesn’t know, even if you asked him, why he didn’t do this sooner.

(Except there is a voice in the back of his head telling him  _ why _ . He ignores that voice, for it is the same voice he always pretends doesn’t exist.)

He kisses Arashiyama, slidding his eyes close because he is not ready to  _ see _ just yet. Arashiyama goes rigid under him like he is not breathing, but Jin doesn’t relent, he presses his lips a little bit more, leans a little bit more, then with a gasp, with a sigh, Arashiyama finally relaxes under him. Jin feels his lashes flutter against Jin’s skin as he closes his eyes, feels the way slips off his body like a heavy cloak, feels the way Arashiyama leans into the kiss.

If possible, his body would bursts into thousands of colors, into  _ fucking _ confetti, and his heart would leap from the tight confine of his chest from how incredibly happy he is. Arashiyama might not be kissing him back, but he lets Jin kisses him, accepts his advances. And it’s more than what Jin needs right now.

“God, I love you,” Jin says right on Arashiyama’s lips, “I’ve been so in love with you since, probably, the first day we met. And I can’t believe I wait that long to do that,” he confesses.

Arashiyama squirms, smiling shyly but strained at the edge. “Jin, I-“

“I have been so stupid, so full of myself. So fucking disgusting, so-“ Jin takes a deep breath, screwing his eyes shut because there might be tears pooling so pathetically on his eyes right now, and he cannot let Arashiyama see it. “So fucking blind. I’m so sorry, I was a coward.  I was so scared, that what if- what if I’ve been reading it all wrong. What if you didn’t like me the way I like,” he corrects himself, “love you. So, I ran away. I turn to other people, I hope- I thought-“

Jin stops, steadying himself because his voice has become too thick with emotion. He cannot continue like this, when he knows word will fail him the more he tried to squeeze them out. He needs a moment to steel himself, to calms down his erratic heart and to pushes the fear that has been mercilessly closing his throat away.

“I thought this way, I don’t have to hurt. I thought this way, if we never happened in the first place, I wouldn’t have lost you, because you,”

He picks up his gaze to find Arashiyama’s own, shining with unshed tears and Jin just wants to cry at seeing them from so close, at how close they’re right now. He wonders if his own eyes are just as glassy, he wonders if Arashiyama won’t mind if he kisses him again, he wonders if being this close with Arashiyama can make them one, can make their hearts aligned like how they shoulder be since years ago. He wonders-

“You are irreplaceable to me, not expendable. You are so important to me, I don’t want to lost you. Not ever. Losing you would,” he swallows, pressing their temples together and breathes in relief, in bliss at the way Arashiyama welcomes the touch, at the way Arashiyama slowly lace their fingers together. “would kill me. And I’m not sure if I can stand having you away from me. I love you, Arashiyama. I’m sorry I took this long, but my feeling for you never waver, never lessen since I first laid my eyes on you…”

The wind slows down to almost stop around him, the night has fallen, blanketing them in inky black color of dark indigo. With the city-light so bright down there, the stars could have been invisible. But starts are strong, starts are stubborn, they have burnt for millions years and keep burning on, too proud with their brilliant light to let the artificial illumination swallow them. Some of them make their appearance known, blinking tirelessly from between parted clouds. Unyielding. Despondent on announcing their existence, because stars, as beautiful as they are, are only fated to die burning out from its brilliance.

And they’re so much alike, Jin thinks, his feelings and the stars. Desperate to be acknowledged despite knowing the less than happy way it’d end up as. But Jin hopes his feelings would be like the stars as well, appreciated and adored while it makes its way to its demise.

At the same time he also hopes it’s where the similarity would end, because Jin’s feeling would not be appreciated just to burn out into nothing. Jin’s feeling would be appreciated, accepted, and cherished for. Arashiyama loves him, Jin is so sure. Arashiyama wants him in the helpless way Jin wants him, needs him in the same intensity Jin needs him.

Tachikawa is nothing more than his replacement for the two of them are so alike, and he will be nothing but that. A replacement. A substitute. Nothing more and nothing else. Jin will make sure of it once he has Arashiyama all for himself, he’d make Arashiyama forgets him, and reminds him how it is Jin whom he really needs. Whom he belongs to and belongs with.

Not Tachikawa. Never Tachikawa.

“But, Midorikawa,” Arashiyama says quietly. “You-“

“I broke up with him,” Jin answers. Then albeit hesitant, he adds. “You should break it up with Tachikawa-san, too.”

Jin is so sure, even without his side-effect telling him, he is so sure Arashiyama would say ‘yes’.

Nothing prepares him from the way Arashiyama’s eyes widen and leans away from Jin. He looks at Jin like he is seeing a ghost, there are so many colors in his eyes, so bright and incandescent. They burn Jin’s heart right where it hurts the most, and suddenly Jin is not so sure anymore.

“I-“ the black-haired boy drops his gaze, voice growing steady but distant. “Can I answer it later?”

Jin says okay, and he pretends Arashiyama doesn’t let his gaze linger on the blinking city beneath him as if he is favoring it over the twinkling sky above.

:::

Midorikawa is a ball of sunshine and energy, so to see him as less than it – or rather; nothing at all like it – is disconcerting.

“Jin-san broke up with me,” he sniffs, then crumbles into a sob when he continues, “he- I begged him, I told him I will try, I don’t care whatever his side-effect told him. I love him, I don’t-“ He cries so earnestly that Yoneya can’t help but wrap his arms around the younger boy – so much younger boy who has been so brave and selfless.

Yoneya knows about Jin’s seemingly endless flings. He, like the rest of everyone else, thought the list would stop with Midorikawa. But his belief faltered when just a couple of days ago, Shuuji had looked so pissed and outright lashed out on his team when they talked about Midorikawa and Jin together.

Shuuji knows something. Yoneya knows Shuuji has been talking with Jin and thought none of his members know. But Yoneya would know anyways, because he is Shuuji’s best-friend and Shuuji puts down his guard so recklessly around his team mates in show of utmost trust, that he doesn’t even realize he cannot lie to them.

Nobody can ruffle Shuuji’s feathers like Jin Yuuichi does. Shuuji and the power elite had a history together, something Yoneya is not privy of like the rest of anybody else, including Azuma-san and Tsukimi-san, which is saying something about how private the matter was.

And Yoneya would know because he loves Miwa Shuuji since the first moment he lied his eyes on the beauteous boy with his crimson eyes and blistered heart. He is not jealous at how much a single mention of Jin would elicit a reaction from Shuuji.

Because Yoneya knows Miwa Shuuji is no longer capable of loving someone, in romantic way. Not when he has sealed the core of his heart that could feel the most raw and primal desire tightly in a diamond-hard box and throw the key away. Shuuji has almost, if not totally non-existent, interest toward love. Yoneya knows him too well to even hope he could be the one to crack open that box and fix his shattered heart.

So, Yoneya loves Miwa Shuuji, but he is resigned to the fate that his love would be unrequited. He is content as long as he can be a reason of Shuuji’s happiness even if not in the way he hoped he could be. That’s just how much he loves his best friend.

But apparently, love comes in many form, in many shapes. Because Midorikawa is not content with just being one factor to Jin’s happiness, he wants to be the only reason behind Jin’s happiness. Him and no one else.

“He told you his side-effect told him your relationship would not work?” Yuuma asks, the level of his tone perfectly conceal the actual sympathy his face is showing. Yoneya adds this to many reason why Kuga Yuuma is one hell of a scary kid.

Midorikawa nods, unable to speak in between his sob. Izumi answers for him, “he said yes.”

Kuga frowns, looking resolutely on his shoes like it holds answer to whatever question that’s getting him all curious and riled up. When he talks again, his voice no longer betrays his expression. “But Jin-san told me it’s the other way around.”

:::

“Shit, sorry,” Arashiyama swears then apologizes just as quickly when he accidentally knocks his glass off the table. Thankfully, it’s plastic, so it just clatters noisily and spills its water content all over the floor.

Tokieda is not sure where he should look at; the mess on the floor or Arashiyama who clumsily tries to fix it. For Arashiyama Jun does not swear. In fact, this is the first time Tokieda ever hears Arashiyama swearing at all.

He blinks at his captain’s head, “it’s okay, Arashiyama-san.” He flinches so hard, abruptly stops scrubbing the floor – using the sleeves of his jacket, for God’s sake. There is something clearly wrong with him. “I will take the mop, it’s okay.”

“But I-“ Arashiyama stutters, still on his knees and looking at the wet floor, “it’s my fault,” he says.

“That’s why you should clean it with a mop,” Tokieda points out, patiently. He is not sure how to treat this,  _ this _ Arashiyama who never quiet behave like this, all jumpy and fidgety and looking like he would cry anytime.

There’s also the fact that he has been avoiding a certain attacker by cramming so many tasks into his schedule that Tokieda is dizzy just looking at it. Thankfully, only to his own personal schedule, not the teams, because he is not sure he can keep up with it while balancing his school at the same time.

Arashiyama looks up at him, and Tokieda decides to ignore how wet Arashiyama’s eyes are despite it’s his sleeves that he use to wipe the floor with. “I- okay, please. Thank you, Mitsuru.”

Tokieda nods, he fetches the mop in broom closet, then hands it to Arashiyama whose smile is still wavering on the edge and face betraying none of his weariness. He watches silently as his captain cleans the floor with frown and sadness that has grown to become permanent on his handsome face.

He hates it, hates seeing Arashiyama sad. His team hates it too. Hell, probably the whole Border hates it. Everyone has been sending him concerned glance behind his back, and it’s just like Arashiyama to be oblivious to how much people actually pay attention to him.

But there is the fact that he has been ignoring one attacker who’s been steadily piling up his scores and then losing it just as soon as he got it by challenging his mentor.

“What did Tachikawa-san did to you?”

Arashiyama’s expression is so comical, so is his reaction. He lets the handle of the mop go, it crashes to the floor loudly. If this is any other situation, Tokieda would laugh – or grin amusedly. This is not any other situation, unfortunately, and with how the reaction just confirms his suspicion, laughing or being amused it the last thing he wants to do.

“It’s him isn’t, it?”

“It’s not-“ He swallows with quivering eyes, and with equally shaky hand, he picks up the fallen mop. “It’s about him, but, it’s Jin…”

Of course, Tokieda swears mentally. It’s Jin, of course. If there is anyone who he secretly loathes, it’s Jin Yuuichi. Before Tachikawa Kei, there was Jin Yuuichi. At least Tachikawa actually lets Arashiyama in, makes him happy though still hesitant. Jin didn’t even let Arashiyama touch the actual wall he had built around himself while he forces his way into Arashiyama’s boundary. “What did he do to you, Arashiyama-san? And you may sit down.”

“Thank you, Mitsuru.” His captain looks him with such pure gratefulness, Tokieda feels like a jerk for even reveling on it. He cannot deny the affection he has for his captain. Arashiyama might think he is good at hiding his feeling, he doesn’t know someone can do it a lot better than him, take Tokieda for example. He has harbored the feeling for his captain for years and yet no single soul suspect.

“So,” he tries again once Arashiyama has settled down – on his chair and under his own skin, tense lines disappearing but the pinched expression and sorrow remains. “Did Jin-san do anything that hurts you?”

He doesn’t reply right away, staring at his abandoned report for a while as if searching for his words in that piece of paper. He would find none, he doesn’t. He finally speaks; voice quiet and so full with distress, swirled in with grey color of confusion, “Jin confessed to me.”

Tokieda can almost hear the way his heart cracks, so loud and audible, bouncing of his ivory bones, and reverberates through his whole body. “You like- love him, don’t you?”

Arashiyama nods, but he is not smiling. That is not the expression of someone who just got his feeling returned after years and years of pining, after days and nights staring from afar.

“Then why aren’t you happy? Why are you looking like-“

“Like it’s the last thing I want?” Arashiyama snorts bitterly. This time, he smiles, but it’s so bitter, so wretched, and so self-depreciating.

So lost, Tokieda just wants to take his hand and tells him;  _ I’m here, Arashiyama-san, I’m here. I won’t leave you. You won’t be lost _ .

Except he knows it’s not him that Arashiyama needs. And this time it’s not about him, it’s about Arashiyama and his conflicted heart. Because Arashiyama doesn’t have to spell it out for Tokieda to knows, for Tokieda has always been watching him, looking after him so fondly yet so carefully so nobody would know the actual meaning behind his gazes.

“Like this, so miserable. So,” Tokieda searches around for the right word, “afraid. Like accepting the confession from someone you have loved for years would hurt you.” After a beat of silence, he adds, “would hurt someone…”

Arashiyama snaps his face up so abruptly he can almost hear his bone clicking together. His forest-green eyes are wide, brimming with tears and unhidden dread. He looks at Tokieda as if Tokieda just announces him the world is ending tomorrow, devoid of any hope but full with terror instead.

Yet, his eyes are still shining so bright, so honest and open with his weakness. Willing to show Tokieda how helpless he is right now. A trust. Something Arashiyama has always given him and his comrades, something that Tokieda will not betray even if it costs him his life. Or his heart.

If Arashiyama spills the content of his heart to the floor in desperate attempt to seek help, than Tokieda is willing to do the same to answer his plea.

“It’s Tachikawa-san, isn’t it?” he tries tentatively, gently, in a manner of speaking to a wounded animal, to child who’s been lied to too many times he refused to open up to deceitful adult. “You love him, don’t you, Arashiyama-san?”

A tear, a lone tear so beautiful as it paves its way down Arashiyama’s cheeks, drops from his eyes. His bottom lips quivers as he croaks out, “I…I was- it was… We…”

“I don’t know the full story,” Tokieda leans forward and gingerly shift his fingers on top of the desk so the tip of his index finger is touching Arashiyama’s. A careful request for permission. “But I know when you started whatever you are doing with Tachikawa-san, you didn’t intend to fall for him. You-“

He pauses, not sure how would his captain react to his next words. But Arashiyama has to hear it from other people’s mouth or he’d keep running away in a circle, going back to where everything started, and he’d just continue hurting himself by denying what he actually feels and what his weary heart is trying to tell him.

“-meant him to be just replacement for Jin-san, his substitute. But you ended up genuinely falling for him,don’t you?”

Arashiyama collects both of Tokieda’s palms in his, gripping them tightly as he brings them to his temple, resting them there as his shoulders start to shake and his breathe comes out stifled, before  he finally gives in to the wave of sorrow that swept over him with lack of mercy. “I, to Tachikawa-san,” he stutters, still trying to maintain his composure but failing so miserably as the next sob wretches its way out from his throat.

Arashiyama makes a distressed whine, tightening his already strong clutch on Tokieda’s hands as if looking for an anchor to keep him steady. The noise he makes is so painful; Tokieda hopes could do something more than helping his words come out easier. But that is exactly what the green-eyed man needs right now, not something to alleviate his pain, but something to help him coming to term with his problem so he can fix and then liberate himself from it.

“I’m so cruel to him, so selfish. I take advantage of him, forces myself on him. And I-“ he swallows, then continues again, “I should not fall for him, not when I know I have someone else I’m loving, not when I know I have someone else I’m waiting for. Not when Tachikawa-san is so kind to me, so gentle. He,”

Patiently, Tokieda waits until Arashiyama can calm himself down because apparently the mention of Tachikawa’s kindness, the thought of how Tachikawa and how he has been treating him since they started their unspoken arrangement that should not end with them getting too attached to each other, is like salt to an old wound.

“He might be doing this to get back to Jin for all I know. But he cares for me, I know he really does. Because when I called him for the first time, when I said his name instead of Jin’s for the first time, he-“

Tokieda ignores the way his heart sting, like being skewered by hot, venomous metal. He wonders if Arashiyama realizes the reverent way he speaks of the A-01 captain, the way he is clearly scared of hurting Tachikawa instead of himself and Jin. Will Arashiyama ever realize that his despair at the thought of hurting Tachikawa is enough answer in itself?

“He smiled,” Arashiyama doesn’t have to raise his face to show Tokieda he is smiling too, “so beautiful but so sad, like he didn’t believe it’s him that I’m calling for. Like he didn’t even dare wishing I would do it, not because he didn’t want me to, but because-“

“Because he really wanted it,” the young boy says, “and if you weren’t  _ really _ calling for him, if you weren’t calling for him the way he wanted you to, it’d tear him apart. So he’d rather not hear it at all.” Arashiyama nods. “And that’s when you realized you love him,” Tokieda concludes for him.

And even if he feels like crying right now, he is smiling, heartfelt and genuine. He is happy, truly so, for the person he loves more than anything in this world finally, finally can find the happiness he is so deserving of. It might not be with him, but at least it’s someone who’s willing to accept him in his high and low. Someone who embraces all his shortcomings with open arms and with no judgement, nor expectation for him to be someone more than he is capable of.

Tokieda has seen the way Tachikawa and Arashiyama acts around each other lately. How the edge of Arashiyama’s smile would loosen, how the corner of his eyes would crinkle just a little bit more as he smiles so brilliant like he is the sun himself. How Tachikawa would do the same, reacts accordingly to Arashiyama’s action, adjusts himself to him; giving him space when he needs it and refusing to give any when Arashiyama thought he needs it but he actually didn’t.

Tachikawa makes him happy in the way Tokieda thought the best attacker of Border could never do. Arashiyama makes him happy too in return, even though at first he did it not with Tachikawa in mind but someone else whose shadow lingers in Tachikawa. That Tachikawa even let Arashiyama did it in the first place is a sign on its own; he cares for Arashiyama in own inexplicable way. It doesn’t matter if no one else understand, the most important thing is these two stubborn men whose hearts are actually calling out for each other while being scared of reaching out at the same time, understand.

“Can I tell you something, Arashiyama-san?” Tokieda can hear the way his own voice wavers, but this is the time, the only time his next words will hold any meaning at all.

Arashiyama sniffs, nodding, but still not looking at him. Well, Tokieda knows his next words are going to make Arashiyama eventually look at him.

“I love you,” Tokieda confesses, and Arashiyama does, look up to him with green eyes shining so bright like emerald under the sun.

“Mit-“

Tokieda quickly says again before Arashiyama can say any further, “I love you, but I know my feelings won’t be returned. I love you, and I’m saying this right now because I want you to know that even if you’re like this, I still won’t think of you any less. Even if you’ve shown how weak and pathetic you are, I still think you are amazing person who deserves your happiness.”

His captain shakes his head slowly, biting his bottom lips, and croaks out, “Mitsuru, I’m sorry. I didn’t know, I had been so-“

“Blind,” Tokieda offers, smiling through his own tears that he knows had fallen on his cheeks. “It’s okay, Arashiyama-san. I know you don’t think of me the same, I’ve come to accepted that. In fact, I have decided that I will never let anyone know at all. Please don’t apologize, Arashiyama-san, I have moved on from you.”

He smiles. He screams at himself for being such a liar. He is yet to move on from his bright captain.

“You deserve to be happy with someone you love. You, Tachikawa-san, even Jin-san. And if your happiness meant you’re hurting someone and being hurt in return, then maybe, maybe happiness isn’t supposed to come without it. Maybe it’s something that you could only gain after you experience sadness.”

“I’m so sorry, Mitsuru,” Arashiyama sobs again. This time he doesn’t avoid looking at Tokieda. “I’ve hurt you unknowingly, and now I’m asking- oh my God, I’m taking advantage of your kindness,” fear, once again, dawns on Arashiyama’s face like unforgiving gravel. “I’m such a, disgusting, selfish person.”

Tokieda tugs on their joined hands, leaning forward across the table so he could rest his head on them as well. “You are, but that’s okay. You know there are – there is – people who would accept that part of you, and even help you change to be a better person, right?”

“Like,” Arashiyama croaks out, “like who?”

“Like Tachikawa-san,” he replies, “he makes you see where you are lacking, and now you want to fix it, right? You want to be less selfish for him because you don’t want to hurt him.”

For a while, there is nothing but silence lapsing between the two of them. Tokieda listens as Arashiyama evens out his breathing, dismantling the tension off from his body. When he speaks again, his voice is raw both from emotion and from too much crying. “Do you think I’m making the right choice?”

“You won’t know until you try.”

“What if- what if I’ve been reading it wrong? What if Tachikawa-san doesn’t love me? What if-“

“How many times,” Tokieda sighs, “have you asked yourself this before? And look at what it did you?”

The silence is followed by a laugh, bitter but it’s an improvement. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

Arashiyama tightens his grip on their tangled hands and looks up, his eyes are red-rimmed with tears, still glassy but there is a conviction in them. Just a shy whisper of them but it’s still there, like sun reluctant to come up after the rain for the clouds are still too heavy and refusing to roll around until the last of rain has been drizzled down.

“I love him,” he says, still shaky but in a way a baby who just learnt how to walk on two feet is. Uncertain, but all he needs is time, he’d soon be able to walk without tripping in his own feet. “I love Tachikawa-san.”

“You do,” Tokieda smiles, giving him reassuring squeeze and encouraging nod. “You should tell him.”

Arashiyama stands up from his seat, they have to let go of their hands, which Tokieda has to admit, makes him feel suddenly cold. But the warmth on his fingers is soon replaced by Arashiyama’s warm hands around his shoulder, holding him so tight, and right beside his ears, he whispers. “Thank you, Mitsuru. And I’m sorry, I love you, but only as a friend, as my family. I-“

“I know,” he immediately returns to hug, sighing to the fabric of Arashiyama’s shoulder. “I just want you to be happy Arashiyama-san.”

When Arashiyama speaks again, Tokieda can hear resolution in his voice. So clear and bright like his presence, reassuring like a sun. “I promise. And you too, Mitsuru, you have to find someone who can make you happy.”

Tokieda says his promise, says he will find someone who loves him the way Arashiyama loves Tachikawa-san if not more. Arashiyama laughs; heart-breakingly beautiful melody. And Tokieda falls a little bit more for him, except he knows he no longer has right to. But this time, only in this short-lived, transient time that would end anytime soon, he allows himself to love this man who is embracing him so tight for the last time.

In the next hours, Arashiyama would belong to somebody else. But Arashiyama right now, who is giving Tokieda his closure, is only Tokieda’s to know and commit to memory.

:::

Yuuma is persistent. Yuuma is relentless. The quality increases tenfold when it concerns someone he truly cares about, and as much as he respects Jin as his senior, he doesn’t respect Jin for what he had done to Midorikawa.

“You lied,” he confronts Jin one night, when Yotaro has gone to sleep with Hyus who had tucked him in, and only the two of them are left in the living room. Jin working something on his laptop – probably a report – and Yuuma has been absent-mindedly switching the channels until he’s sure Reiji-san has retired for the day.

“Hmm?”

Yuuma glares at him, “you lied at Midorikawa. You said your side-effect told you your relationship with Midorikawa is not going to work. That’s not what you told me before.”

Jin types away, the clicking of keys are steady rhythm like rain that’s falling outside. “I did.”

“Why?” Yuuma asks. “Why did you lie to him about it?”

He expected Jin to dodge around, because Jin is crafty and can actually get away without lying with his words. Or at least delay his answer. But Jin surprises him by saying, “because my side-effect told me it’s going well, except you know that some future it shows me is not definite. And I figure it’s not going to work anyways when I’m in love with another person.”

“That’s,” Yuuma blinks, perplexed. That’s not the answer he expected. “You love someone else?”

“I do,” Jin answers as quick as the fly of his fingers on the keyboard. “I confessed. I’m waiting for the answer actually.”

Yuuma frowns, “who? Is he someone I know?”

This time, Jin doesn’t answer, just continue typing away on his laptop. All the way Yuuma watches him, from the dizzying speed his fingers are moving to the carefully kept blank expression on his face. Jin is an expert in this, and just as much is Yuuma. It’s a game they both know no one will wind because they’re just as stubborn as one another.

In the end, Yuuma yields. With a sigh, he hops off from the couch and shoves his hands to the pocket of his hoodie. He passes Jin, not saying anything, not even stealing a glance at him because he is still pissed though he now understands Jin’s reasoning.

But when he’s at the foot at the stairs, he pauses, and says, “if you think lying at him keeps him from being hurt, you’re mistaken, Jin-san.”

Had Yuuma waits a little longer, he would have heard Jin’s weary and defeated sigh, “do you really think I don’t know?”

:::

It’s like a snowball, a giant snowball rolling off a cliff in break-neck speed, stopping at absolutely nothing and keeps on trampling over, destroying anything that stands on its course.

It starts with Yoneya accidentally discovering Tokieda crying by himself late at night at one abandoned corridor at Headquarter when he had come back to for his forgotten homework. Tokieda looks like, well, for the lack of better term; a mess. Gone is his composed behavior, gone is his level stare and voice. Gone is the air of constant composure he always maintained around him, replaced by tears-stained cheeks and red-rimmed eyes.

“What the hell,” Yoneya splutters, quickly kneeling down by Tokieda’s feet and grabs his shoulders. Too rough, Tokieda flinches, gasps. The concern and guilt twisted Yoneya’s stomach together. He gulps down, and asks, “what happened? What- who did this to you?”

Tokieda tells him everything, upper body bending so low that his forehead is touching his knees as he spoke in between his tears about what just happened between him and Arashiyama. As Yoneya listens, switching to holding him from Tokieda’s change of position, he is reminded that it is the quiet who held himself back the most. Even someone of not many words like Tokieda actually had this many contained within his small body.

“It’s okay, it’s gonna be okay,” he murmurs, running comforting circles on the brunette’s trembling back. “You’ve been so brave, you did the right thing. It’s gonna be okay.”

Except Yoneya is not sure if things are really gonna be okay. He might be stupid but he is not slow, and he can perfectly pieces up everything together even without Izumi or Narasaka guiding him, thank you very much.

So Yoneya offers to take Tokieda home, and they walk together in much-welcomed silence. Tokieda thanks him, cheeks as red as his eyes, embarrassed at being seen when he is less than presentable.

“Thank you, Yoneya-san. I’m sorry you had to see,” he gestures vaguely to his face, smiling self-depreciatively. And Yoneya blinks, thinking the expression doesn’t suit him at all. “This.”

“Nah, you’re still pretty.” He blurts out and wondering at the same time why the hell did he say that. Tokieda’s expression says it all, and he is probably mirroring the expression, or not, he cannot tell for he is not capable of seeing his own face right now. “I’m off then, take care!”

Anyways, Yoneya manages to pieces things up together. And he tells his ‘theory’ on Izumi who at first thought he’s being ridiculous until he realizes the increasing amount of mission he has with Satori – with A-05 that Arashiyama is commandeering – and Yoneya’s theory suddenly is not theory at all with Izumi’s testimony about the exchange between his captain and Arashiyama, supported by Satori’s own account at how many times Tachikawa has been making his appearance by A-05 door.

“Oh God, I can’t believe this,” Izumi groans, in horror and wonder. It’s hard to tell them apart from his bewildered expression. “Tachikawa-san and Arashiyama-san?”

“Does it mean our team is, you know, teaming up together?” Satori asks, and if Izumi bothers to  _ actually _ listen to him, he’d hear the hopeful tone that carries the sniper’s voice.

“But it’s insane, it doesn’t make sense. It’s like, like- beauty and the beast!” Izumi says instead, horrified.

“No matter who you pair Tachikawa-san with, it’ll always ended up like Beauty and The Beast.” Yoneya nods to himself, then he gasps, “you know, I mean, there’s a rumor about him and Tsukimi-san?  _ Eww _ !”

The conversation doesn’t pick up from there, but it goes to Yuuma anyways, and Yuuma has stubbed his toes on the wall. “Of course! How could I be so stupid and not realized it before?”

Osamu, who happens to be with him when the conversation takes place, and honestly thinks it’s not their places to say or do anything, or even hear about this, and if you asked him would say he just want to leave but decided to stay just because he is a naturally curious boy, thinks it’s because Yuuma is so focused on climbing his way up to the top. Of course he should not be bothered with this - borrowing Reiji-san’s word whenever topic of Jin’s ‘affair’ is brought up - ‘child-play’.

And then Yuuma tells Midorikawa about it because Midorikawa is his friend, one of his first friends, and he genuinely wants to help. And even if Yuuma is undeniably an expert when it comes to war and battle, he is as clueless as – or maybe less than - Youtaro when it comes to love.

Despite Osamu’s insistence that he should not say anything to Midorikawa (“Would it change a thing?” Osamu had asked, frustrated. Yuuma didn’t say anything), Yuuma believes this is the best thing to do. 

If only Yuuma knows that as fair as love and war can be, love is not always as simple as war, for war depends on logic and level-headed thinking.

Love? All it takes is emotion and people can do the impossible.

Or the stupid thing, depending on how you see it.

Stupid thing, or the impossible, this time, includes Midorikawa coming to Jin – or rather, obsessively waits by the HQ entrance whenever he could and with stubbornness of coral-reef, drags Jin to where they can talk in private. Much to Midorikawa’s relief, Jin agrees, and he is still smiling so kindly at him. It makes the hope in his heart sparks alive.

“I know about Arashiyama-san,” he says once he’s sure it’s only the two of them.

Jin blinks, clearly surprised. “How-“

“He doesn’t love you. He loves Tachikawa-san.” Midorikawa continues.

He had expected to see Jin’s shocked face, but when the only change on his face is just a crooked smile, Midorikawa feels his composure starts chipping away together with his confidence. “Who tells you this?”

“It doesn’t matter,” he insists. “I love you, I still do. He’s not going to love you back just because I tell you who told me.”

“Shun,” Jin says, voice blank and devoid from any emotion despite the smile that’s still etched on his face. On the face that haunts Midorikawa’s dream like living nightmare. “Stop this.”

“Why can’t you just accept it,” Midorikawa presses on, voice starting to tremble like his clenched fist. “That he doesn’t love you, and I-“

“Then, tell me why can’t you?” Jin snaps, voice going artic-cold, sky-blue eyes turning down several degrees. Hardening, unforgivingly sharp like icicles, “why can’t you just accept it’s over between us and I don’t love you the same way anymore?”

Later, Jin would blame himself for speaking like this to a boy who’s five years younger than him. Later, not now. Because his heart might actually starts bleeding from Midorikawa’s heart, and like the bastard he is, he wants Midorikawa to hurt the same.

“I-“ Midorikawa falters, big, fat tears spilling down from his eyes. He tries to speak again but failed, too overcame with emotion. In the end, he could do nothing but cry, sobbing brokenly to his sleeves as he repeats over and over again, “but, I love you, Jin-san.”

Later, Yuuma would find Midorikawa like this, crying alone like a child abandoned by his mother. Later, Osamu would berate Yuuma for sticking his nose in where he doesn’t belong. Later, Yuuma would confront Jin again, so full with rage and anger he could barely speak properly. Later, Jin would tell him, “you should have keep your mouth shut.”

Later, for now the snowball is yet to stop, still rolling, and doesn’t seem to ease up at speed anytime soon.

Later, later-

:::

Arashiyama likes to believe that he actually holds  _ something _ over Tachikawa Kei. A semblance of control. Anything that’s all these times had been exclusive to only a few people, like Shinoda-san, Kazama-san, and Ren-san for example.

Or maybe, he doesn’t believe it that much, because when he actually tests the water, he is so surprised at realizing he actually has it.

“Jin confessed to me,” he says one night when he is staying in Tachikawa’s room, not with intention of engaging in sexual activity before sleep claim them, but to help Tachikawa around his paper.

Tachikawa stops typing because his nails are jammed between the keyboards, eyes flashing at Arashiyama’s words. The young captain would laugh (because, really, he did just  _ jam _ his fingers between his keyboards), if not for the look on Tachikawa’s face. “What,” he says, not questions, just  _ says _ .

“I,” Arashiyama swallows, dropping his gaze to his own screen before raising them again to meet Tachikawa’s own petrified gaze. A part of him blew a sigh of relief, because he’s not the only one terrified for this. “He said he loves me, has been for a very long time.” His voice starts trembling, throat growing slick, and,  _ God _ , give him strength for he needs it the most this time. “He said I don’t have to answer it now.”

Tachikawa blinks at him so slowly like his muscles are not cooperating. His face has become so blank, but Arashiyama has become so adept at reading him to know.

“I would say yes-“

Tachikawa moves so fucking fast that Arashiyama wonders if he’s in his trion body or in his actual one. He hasn’t finished his words, he doubts he even has finished one respiratory cycle, when Tachikawa, quiet practically, pounces on him. His left hand is gripping on Arashiyama’s shoulder, pressing him down forcefully until Arashiyama is lying flat on his back, head knocking on the floor hard enough to makes him dizzy. And only when his hazy vision is cleared from pain does he realize Tachikawa’s other hand is already working to unbutton his shirt.

“Tachikawa-san, wait-“ Arashiyma tries, struggle to break free, because he is not done yet. And Tachikawa is actually hurting him. He had been treated roughly by Tachikawa before but there’s always a purpose to please on the edge of his none than gentle hands.

This time, the sweetly-burning tenderness is lacking and it genuinely scares Arashiyama.

“Tachikawa-san, please-,” Tachikawa practically tears his shirt apart and starts attacking Arashiyama’s neck, kissing the tender skin, biting, leaving marks. And his free hand moves too harshly, brusquely to completely wrench Arashiyama out from his clothing.

Arashiyama keeps calling for him, begging him to stop, but it falls to deaf ears. He starts crying when Tachikawa reaches for his cock and starts stroking him. He is scared. He doesn’t want this. He doesn’t know  _ this _ Tachikawa. Tachikawa-san is not supposed to hurt him like his, he’s supposed to treat Arashiyama with bruising tenderness; he’s supposed to listen to Arashiyama’s plea. He is supposed to kiss Arashiyama before they engage in any sexual activity at all. He is supposed to-

_ Love him, _ Arashiyama thinks as another tears fall down his cheeks, leaving trails of silver path on its wake.

He lets Tachikawa stroke his cock roughly, no finesse, no tenderness. No purpose other than to vent up his frustration, and Arashiyama wants to cry for so many reason at the same time, but what breaks him the most is the realization that this is  _ him _ , he is doing this to Tachikawa. He’s making him like this.

It’s scary, because he actually has that control over Tachikawa, and it’s a little bit different than what he expected it to be; a little bit more than he thought it’d be.

Arashiyama is scared at so many things; at this Tachikawa, at the shifting dynamic between them. At admitting his own feeling. But he is done being scared, being afraid and cowardice. It didn’t serve him anything but heartbreak last time. Leaving him in this mess where he could have what he had always wanted without hurting anyone, but because he was too frightened, he ended up walking all over his own and everyone else’ broken hearts on the floor.

He moans when Tachikawa bites down hard on the tender flesh on his neck, a mark that with no doubt would be visible if he wears low-collared shirt. And he remembers Tokieda – remembers Mitsuru who had been so brave, so kind, so selfless and dear. He had promised Mitsuru, whom he had accidentally hurt, that he’d be happy with someone whom he deserves – someone that he loves.

“Kei-san,” he chokes out. Calls out, soft and gentle, voice trembling like the rest of his body, but he is not afraid. In him, the last shred of hesitation has gone, replaced by sheer determination, and the fear buzzing under his skin is only from the foreign way Tachikawa is handling him.

That actually works. Tachikawa stops abruptly, body going still; too still that Arashiyama doubts he is even breathing. The silence that follows is unnerving, but Arashiyama is only glad that Tachikawa has finally stops treating him in the way that doesn’t resemble him at all.

“You are hurting me,” he says.

Arashiyama feels Tachikawa’s throat bobs as he swallows and it’s the only sign he is listening at all. His head is still tucked under Arashiyama’s chin where he’s been busy leaving his marks – as if he is wants the whole world to know that Arashiyama has belonged to someone. He is about to say something when he feels yet again Tachikawa’s movement, he raises his head slowly until their eyes meet.

He is breathless at the expression on the attacker’s face. His pupils are expanding so wide that his eyes had become completely black, so dark, both with lust and trepidation. With desire and fear, dyed over again in color of guilt and regret, with repulse, tinted in revolt. And he is so, so afraid of himself, of words that’s about to leave Arashiyama’s lips. Of everything, and all Arashiyama wants to do is hold him tight, keeps him tucked safely there, and protects him from anything that tries to bring him harm.

So, hold him, he does, wrapping his arms around Tachikawa’s shoulders – shoulders he had lean and cling on so many times before – and pulls him in until Tachikawa is back nestled between his own neck and shoulders. He breathes him in, until it’s Tachikawa that’s filling his lungs and it’s Tachikawa who fuels his cells. 

“It’s okay,” he murmurs, pressing their bodies together like they can never be close enough. “You hurt me, but it’s okay now. You’re not hurting me anymore. You can-“

“I’m sorry,” Tachikawa’s apology tumbles, crashing down to the floor. His hands are shaking but when Arashiyama whispers on his ears – asks him, tells him he wants to be held – Tachikawa complies right-away, wrapping hesitant arms around Arashiyama’s torso like he’d disappear if he holds him any less strong than this but it’s hurting him at the same time. “I’m such a horrible piece of shit. I’m so-“

“What were you thinking?”

Tachikawa sounds genuinely confused when he repeats, “what am I thinking?”

“When I said ‘I would say yes’. What were you thinking? Why-“ Arashiyama cannot continue for Tachikawa is growling, with so much pain and so much anger. So much rage, so much frustration, and all he wants do is curl around Tachikawa to protect him from whatever is making react like this; except he knows it is him, and the only way to alleviate themselves from this inexorable chains of misery is by laying out their cards in the open and facing their fear head on.

“I hate it,” Tachikawa spat, voice burning with venom. “I hate thinking that you’re going to Jin’s place. I don’t want it, I fucking hate it. I don’t want you to-“ Tachikawa takes a shuddering breath, and when he speaks again, his voice is wet with tears, so thick with sadness, laced with despair. “Don’t leave me,” he croaks out.

He sounds so weak, so unlike the strong fortress that is Tachikawa Kei. Arashiyama realizes, with startling clarity that knocks the oxygen away from his lungs, that it is  _ him _ who’s making Tachikawa like this. God, he is so- “why do you hate it, Kei-san?”

“I-“

“ _ Please _ , “ he begs, sounding desperate himself. “I need to know why.”

Slowly, Tachikawa raises his head again. Arashiyama lets him, his fingers falling to rest on Tachikawa’s shoulder and Tachikawa uses his large palms to cradle his face tenderly, like he’s afraid his touch would hurt Arashiyama again. Arashiyama tells him it is okay by leaning into them, sighing, and relaxing under Tachikawa’s furnace-like heart.

Their eyes meet – dark forest-green meets brilliant jade. Both shine with emotion, wet from unshed tears, both are wide open; accepting, letting each other in. Arashiyama is too overwhelmed by the sheer gravity of it all, for having someone who trusts him enough to make him see them in any way they are, and to have someone whom he trusts just as much to know what he fears the most, yet will still stay because they care for him, respect him for what he is and what he is not.

“If I told you, would you change your answer?”

Arashiyama frowns, because, “why would I?”

“Because I love you,” Tachikawa confesses. “I probably shouldn’t, because in the beginning, I didn’t start this with such intention. I just thought- I just used you, to release my need, to get back at Jin-“

“But you came to love me,” Arashiyama says, his voice is blank from being too numb with happiness. His heart soars, chest full with fluttering butterflies.

“I came to love you. I do love you,” he affirms, smiling bitterly. “You have become so important to me, Jun. With or without Jin, I still love you. I would love you.”

That makes the two of them then, Arashiyama thinks. Because now, he too, would love Tachikawa with or without Jin in the picture.

He would love him; love this man who had filled the emptiness in his heart and the cold, empty spot he wakes up to in the morning. Tachikawa had made him wish the night will last forever, and day will never come as he sleeps in his embrace, as he feels Tachikawa’s breath ghosting over his skin, his arms wrapped around him warmer than any blanket.

Arashiyama would love him, because if it wasn’t for Tachikawa, he wouldn’t know that kindness could come even in the cruelest and most selfish way. If it wasn’t for Tachikawa, Arashiyama would never know the fear of hurting someone he loves more than he fears hurting himself.

Had he not lashed on Tachikawa that night, had Tachikawa not offered him, had he not accepted it, he wouldn’t be here now. Feeling as much happiness as much as sadness. Feeling hurt as much as he feels loved. Feels so brave and so sure of himself despite the pain he knows will come his way.

Tachikawa has made his so brave, this brave, by providing Arashiyama with kindness he expected from someone else, but the fact it is Tachikawa Kei who is treating him this gently wouldn’t change. The fact it is Tachikawa Kei who had taken the first step, made the effort, and actually let Arashiyama in wouldn’t change anything, except Arashiyama’s feeling, and now the vectors are all pointing at his direction, telling Arashiyama where his heart should go.

Telling him that he-

“I would say yes,” Arashiyama says again, “if I hadn’t fallen for you…”

Tachikawa blinks down on him like he doesn’t understand what Arashiyama is talking about. “What?” He asks dumbly.

“I,” he roams his gaze over Tachikawa’s face, making note at everything he sees from the stubbles on his chin to his thin and flat eyebrows, then his lips. His red, full lips that had marked him more than he could count in places he didn’t know could be marked at all. “I’m saying I love you…Kei-san.”

Arashiyama is grateful that human cannot die from happiness, because if he could, he’d be dead by now. And if he dies, he wouldn’t be able to look at the smile that has beautifully blooms on Tachikawa’s face. So heartbreakingly beautiful that he could cry. So honest, so raw, so open. So genuine and kind. So strong and reassuring. So straight-forward and simple, like everything Tachikawa Kei he has come to love is.

“I love you,” Arashiyama repeats, breathless. He looks at Tachikawa in wonder. And if repeating his feeling over and over again, if admitting his feeling a hundred times until it is the only vocabulary he knows, could get him to see this smile every single time, he’d do it, as much as possible until the last of his dying breath. “I love you, Kei-san. I love you so much, I-“

“I love you too,” Tachikawa says, equally breathless like he is. The corner of his eyes are crinkling from how wide he is smiling, and Arashiyama feels his heart stutters when Tachikawa presses their forehead together, closing his eyes, and sighing with bliss. “God, I love you so much, you have no idea…”

Arashiyama wants to say he does, because if Tachikawa loves him as much as Arashiyama does, then he might very well have an idea. But to argue about who loves who more is a moot point, and now, all he wants to do is revel in Tachikawa’s presence, to embrace him and be embraced. To feel him and be felt at the same time. To be one, to share their time and breathe not only the same air but also each other in.

To love and be loved in return.

“Kei-san,” Arashiyama manages through the chock full of emotion.

“Hmm?”

He speaks, then feels all his doubt and anxiety, all his fears and uneasiness, scurry away as sense of peace and tranquility falls over him like a heavy, silky blanket. Draping over him with velvet touch of love and affection. Like Tachikawa’s fingers that have found their way to his own, tangling them together in a way so delicate, as if he’s treating world’s most precious gem. “Make love to me?” Arashiyama asks, shyly, confidently.

Tachikawa smiles at his beatifically, morning sun-warm and encompassing. He kisses him and presses their body so close to the point Arashiyama doesn’t know where Tachikawa begins and where he ends.

The thing is, Arashiyama is scared about a lot of things.

The thing is, Tachikawa does too.

The thing is, they’re both scared, so afraid, so frightened of being hurt, but so desperate to have someone acknowledging their fear without letting them go.

The thing is, they both expected they would find it in someone else. And maybe, that someone else could have given them what they needed, but in order to do that, first and foremost, there has to be courage; the courage to take the first step; the courage to make the effort.

And maybe, it just happened that they took it at the same time. It could have been coincidence; it could have been the meticulous work of God with his cruel sense of humor. It could have been anything, but for now, they do not care, nor would they care about it in the future.

Because, the thing is, they have been so scared; they’re not actually blind but were so terrified so they voluntarily left themselves unseeing, pretending obliviousness to what they actually realize.

It didn’t happen overnight, of course. It took time for them to realize that maybe, it’s not the person who mattered but the action that did. It didn’t have to be Jin for Arashiyama. It could be anyone, anyone who’s willing to show him that no matter how pathetic and disgusting he is, even if he cannot be reborn anew, he can still change.

And because changing is scary – because moving on from your unrequited love and realizing you have fallen for another is also scary – Tachikawa was, is, has been, and will still be there. To hold his hand, to walk with him, to let Arashiyama sees his dark and light, to let Arashiyama leads him.

So even if today is painful, one day, they could recall it with fondness. One day, today will become a memory so dear they wouldn’t trade even the most sorrowful of scar for anything. Everything is scary but they will be okay, because they’re together; because they have each other.

Because no matter how scared they are, they’re no longer alone. They have someone else willing to take the first step for the both of them.

:::

Miwa stares at the clear pasting tied together with blue ribbon, housing assorted cookies which shapes clearly tell him it is hand-made instead of store bought.

Tsukimi is sipping on her too, reading the book on her lap without making any noise. There is nobody else in the room, they don’t have a mission nor meeting schedule today. Yoneya has been dragged by Izumi who drags Tsuji along with him to the lounge. Narasaka and Kodera have gone straight to the booth after they arrived at HQ.

“Who?”

Truth to be told, he is not curious at all to know where the cookies came from. Or maybe; he’d rather not know for there is a weird twist in his stomach at the sudden appearance of a voice he thought he had long since pushed to the back of his head.

“Jin-kun said he is sorry,” Tsukimi says in her melodic voice, not once lifting her gaze from her book. “I don’t know what he did this time, but he looks genuinely,” she blinks, long lashes fluttering, “Regretful, and sad. Really sad. You would forgive him, wouldn’t you?”

_ ‘Would I?’ _ asking himself mentally, Miwa doesn’t answer, just staring at the cookie with hardened expression on his face. He doesn’t think so, not when doesn’t even know what Jin is apologizing for.

Jin had simply hurt him too many times before.


End file.
